The halls around Science Lab 10 were empty of all life. Even service robots that could be found sweeping through corridors at the odd hours, keeping the ship clean, were absent. It was like stepping onto a ghost ship, the crew mysteriously missing. For three sections around the lab, and two decks above and below, the corridors of USS Sundiver would be the same.

“Erie,” Captain Lorena Escribano said aloud as her footfalls echoed along the corridors, joined promptly by those of her executive officer. “Be glad when this little science project is finished.”

“Evacuating these sections wouldn’t save anyone if the project went sideways,” Commander Jin Tae said with no small amount of sardonic grimness. “I’ve seen footage of benamite crystal synthesis gone wrong. Starfleet would be lucky to even find an identifiable expanding cloud of plasma.”

“The empty compartments are to protect the crew if we had a minor accident, not a straight up incident.” Lorena’s reminder wasn’t intended to be harsh. She’d tasked Tae with working with Commander S’ronlu after all on bringing the Sundiver’s quantum slipstream drive up from being a mere engineering footnote in the ship’s history to a fully functional system. And it had been somewhat exhaustive work that only a few of the ship’s engineers could work on thanks to its complexities. Work that had consumed Tae’s attention the last few days, with suitable excuses for missing briefings.

“Lorena, do you really think a few compartments would save anyone aboard this ship from any runaway event that produces theta, or heaven forbid, geodesic radiation?” Tae’s hand slapped at the button next to the door to the lab, doors parting in the presence of the ship’s two most senior officers.

Lorena wanted to glare, to stare down her executive officer, but instead she just gave Tae a look that communicated her agreement. The evacuation had been largely to placate concerns and worries. But any accident, minor or not, would have been deadly.

“Someone promised me good news,” Lorena said instead of answering Tae verbally, stepping past the other woman into the lab.

“One point five eight kilos of refined, pure, grade A Sundiver blend benamite crystal.” Lieutenant Commander Nick Johnson’s smile was all-encompassing, and an ever-present feature of the man’s face. As he turned to face the visitors to the ship’s most remote science lab, he held in his hands a solid, clear crystal with the perfection only achieved by lab-grown specimens. “Sized to fit within the QSD as specified and ready to rock. We just turned Sundiver into the fastest ship in the squadron.”

“I thought you said there would be more?” Tae’s challenge was muted some by her inspection of the crystal that Nick was cradling. Such a simple thing, the result of such a perilous process that could have vaporised Sundiver at any moment if it had gone wrong.

“Tae, do I ever only bake a single batch of cookies?” Nick asked with a wink as he set the crystal down into a carrying case, foam padding embracing the precious substance. “There’s another crystal still growing in the reactor over there,” he said with an idle wave towards a device in the corner of the lab, the flickering blue light of a forcefield around it constantly being challenged by something unseen.

“How big?” Lorena asked immediately.

“Same size, ma’am. And it’ll be the last one too. All the refined ore is gone, and we jettisoned the waste products back down the gravity well of that neutron star.”

“Can’t make them any deadlier,” Tae commented as she closed the carry case and picked it up for the not terribly long trip to Engineering. “Someone ever figures out how to make this stuff safer, we’ll have a whole new antimatter rush on our hands.”

“Well, I don’t want to brag, but I’m going to be submitting a few suggestions when this is all over.” Nick was supremely pleased with himself; a man who took pride in his work before anything else. “I bet more than a few science teams across the fleet will be, to be honest.”

“Well, get whatever you want written up then. We’ll be heading off as soon as Tae gets that crystal to engineering. Might just hit a subspace relay so you can publish first.”

“Don’t tease me,” Nick said. “Wait, you’re serious? Where are we going?”

“Captain MacIntyre’s last report to Perseus said Republic was heading to Betazed via an Underspace corridor and ‘divine inspiration’, whatever that means.” Lorena shrugged when both Tae and Nick gave her questioning looks. “He’s hoping to rendezvous with Atlantis, since at least report they were the only ship in the Betazed system and no one was heard from the system since the Blackout started.”

“So, we’re going to Betazed as well?” Nick’s whistle conveyed his opinion of the matter sufficiently well. “Man, that crystal there is overkill then. We’re what, just over a hundred lightyears or so? We’ll be there in, like, twenty minutes. That thing is good for roughly ten thousand lightyears at the moment.”

“How long until the second crystal is ready?” Lorena asked.

“Half a day.” Nick’s answer was followed by his brow furrowing. “We’re giving it to another ship, aren’t we?”

Lorena nodded as she turned to Tae. “Get that to Engineering, then set a course for the Argonaut’s last known location. Just on the off case that something has gone wrong, I figure we might as well bring the heaviest hitter we can along with us.”

“Hope for the best, but bring a heavy escort just in case the dance partners get a bit handsy,” Tae quipped, actually smiling as she turned and walked away.

“She always has the most interesting sayings,” Nick said in Tae’s absence.

“And you mentioned cookies earlier,” Lorena said as she too headed for the door. “Couldn’t ask for some for the morning briefing?”

“Chocolate chip, as always,” Nick said. “I’ll get this crystal ready for transfer as soon as it’s done. We’ll have Argonaut at our side, I promise.”